2 Comments on “Is God Wrong to Take Life?”

I find this disturbing on many levels. But I think the heart of the matter is in the difference in how God is viewed. It seems as if God is understood to be a supreme being that does not have to follow the same rules He is asking us to follow. That is not the God I serve. There are so many scriptures that show God is Love, God is Merciful… Look at all of the attributes in 1 Cor 13. If God is Love, then all of those attributes apply to him.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails.

So when you deal with topics like Jericho and the Canaanites, it needs to be with the view of God and His patients for over 400 years, not a mechanical random killing machine.

When God was talking to Abram, He makes it clear that He was being patient with the people in that land giving them time to change their behavior.

Gen 15
13 Then He said to Abram: “Know certainly that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them, and they will afflict them four hundred years. 14 And also the nation whom they serve I will judge; afterward they shall come out with great possessions. 15 Now as for you, you shall go to your fathers in peace; you shall be buried at a good old age. 16 But in the fourth generation they shall return here, for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet complete.”

Romans 5:8
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

That is the God that I serve, and that is the God that will win over the hearts of many.

Mat 24
The Signs of the Times and the End of the Age

3 Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

4 And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. 5 For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. 6 And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. 8 All these are the beginning of sorrows.

9 “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. 10 And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. 11 Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. 12 And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved. 14 And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.

Verse 14 is a clear indicator that we can speed up that day. Jesus cant come back until all the nations have heard. They don’t have to believe, they just have to hear.

So our commission, is to quit debating over things that don’t matter, and get busy getting to the Unengaged Unreached People Groups of the world.

Respectfully, why do you think that God’s holiness doesn’t matter and is a waste of time?

My impression from your comment, especially from the first and last paragraphs, is that God can only be loving and merciful, but not sovereign and just. My brother, I don’t suppose that is true of you.

Do you think that Desiring God is wasting time on debates and not reaching community groups around the world? This video is a snippet from a larger Q&A session where Piper answers random questions live. What was it that gave you the impression that they were debating?

A couple more questions I wonder: (1) What exactly was so disturbing to you? (2) From Piper’s answer, what rules do you think God is asking us to follow yet does not follow?